Today's article in the Observer.........UK police and Wessely consider us 'dangerous!

Since the riots and David Starkey's use of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' Speech to claim 'the whites have become black' to invoke what I believe is a racist explanation for the riots, I've seen certain aspects of this current onslaught against the ME community to discredit their concerns and link them to unsubstantiated stories of abuse and harassment having a key commonality with the Powell speech saga.

This is basically the use of unsubstantiated claims of 'abuse' etc. to invoke a reaction of disgust and horror against a group of people, so that even the legitimate, reasonable concerns and actions/behaviour of members of that general group of people becomes conflated with (largely unsubstantiated) claims of abuse/harassment etc.

Powell's speech, which even now is claimed by some as not racist (!), if you read carefully, is wholly about the irrational fear, not of problems with say, over-population of limited space, but of the colour of skin of immigrants (possibly with an accompanying fear of different cultures.)

But, he also refers to a claim of a campaign of abuse against one of his constituents, an old woman allegedly harassed by blacks:

This was a highly emotive example, as can be seen: an image of a poor old white woman suffering terrible harassment from blacks. We can say harassment is wrong, and no matter what the concerns, there was no excuse for blacks to do what they did. But if you look in the speech, the alleged acts of harassment are being used to argue that the black man is somehow not the same as 'us' white people, he/they are unreasonable, dangerous.

However, an article in the Daily Mail from 2007, tells a different story:

I'm not trying to claim the Daily Mail article is somehow the definitive 'correct version' of events. But the whole saga shows how legitimate concerns among a group of people (blacks), was conflated with an unsafe story about 'harassment', to claim this group as dangerous, in order to push an agenda, by Powell (anti-immigration, anti-civil rights legislation). This modus operandi is extremely similar to the campaign that Wessely, McClure, Crawley and others have perpetrated in recent weeks.

I don't want to put long screeds of the speech or the Daily Mail article up here. But I think if people go and look themselves, you'll see what I mean.

Similarly, David Starkey recently invoking Powell's speech on BBCTV was shocking (note also how he tried to conflate 'Jamaican patois' with what is actually TEXTSPEAK in order to claim 'the whites have become black' as an explanation for the riots!)

Today, seeing how the campaign against ME sufferers has gone on after the riots is interesting. Whether this was a planned campaign interrrupted by the riots, or whether the SMC have taken advantage of the riots and fear of violence to continue the campaign after the riots in order to take advantage of fear of allegedly violent groups, is not clear.

It is also interesting that they are NOW claiming the police are seeing ME sufferers as somehow 'officially' akin to animal rights extremists, whereas this was implied a few weeks ago- but could not be substantiated. We have some very sneaky language, and insinuations that it seems currently impossible to substantiate.

Re AIDS activists, i think one big difference was that they, until they got very sick, were quite fit. So they could go out and make a lot of noise. For us that's unfortunately difficult to do, and so a large part of the public might only get one side of the argument, the one that is presented in these articles. And this is dangerous for us, in my mind. If we can't challenge what is said in this campaign and get our position across, so people can make up their own minds and will not blindly swallow what these media are telling them, it's hard to imagine how we can win against this propaganda and keep the public from believing it.

Yes, the housebound, ill people who are a threat to society and the scientific process, but are too sick to fight back against this disgusting media campaign. How much crazier could it get?

I just had a fun idea after reading this thread and the Vivint thread. Why don't instead of sending aggressive mails (i don't think they are susceptible to them anyway and it only backfires) to S.W. and friends, send them invitations to vote for the WPI or IACFS/ME in Vivint and similar events, send them requests to please donate to these charities in occasions like the matching period in Vivint or the Count ME In! campaign and other such events. Forward to them WPI newsletters and similar stuff. Let's mock them with that kind of stuff and if they don't want to help or are not interested they will need an explanation. It would force them to say the WPI is bad, for example, or they don't believe in biomedical research, they don't want to help ME/CFS charities, etc. What do you think? My brain is a bit cooked after having to use it too much, but somehow i think this might not even be a bad idea. And kind of funny too.

For example, we could ask S.W. if he could please take the time to create a Google Doodle for the May 12th idea. Haha...

I think that illustrates my point. These people are simply not prepared to debate with us in an honest way. Another favourite Wessely straw man is his often repeated suggestion that ME patients are in some way prejudiced against mental illness.

There is no evidence to suggest that ME patients as a whole are any more prejudiced against mental illness than society at large.

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Agree, just more shabby propaganda.

From the article:

None of the scientists contacted by the Observer believed chronic fatigue syndrome was purely psychological. All thought external causes were involved.

What they mean by 'external causes' needs some clarification.

They also can't say we believe it is not purely psychological and that external causes are involved, and then still use the CBT/GET model. It is not merely a model for secondary coping and management, it is (and is certainly frequently promoted by them as) a primary explanatory and even potentially curative model.

To argue that they do not see it as purely psychological is just another nonsense straw man. It is quite clear they see this as a primarily psychological disorder, with any physical effects being secondary, both causally and therapeutically just the current brand of psycho-somatosis, by any other name.

All taken together very sneaky Sean - not "purely psychological" is one way of keeping their foot in the door - rather trying by any means possible it appears by this "coterie". What is lacking of course is any discussion about ME (research findings, pathologies etc) and all we are left with is their constant need for self justification and their own "abuse" by implication of the whole ME community.

A few of those concerned are Doctors and it is disgraceful that they remain uninterested in the research findings pouring in from everywhere else but the UK, including testings, pathogen findings and anti-viral treatments being used (at the very least with so many bodily systems found dysfunctional)

Not that I was an Observer or Guardian reader - the piece looks and reads as "Look how wronged I've been" only.

Unless you have indicated to the contrary, it will be considered for
publication and may be edited. Whether or not we have space to publish your
letter, it will be read with interest and copied for noting to the relevant
journalist or section editor.

Please do not reply to this email, as the account from which it is sent
cannot accept incoming email. Instead use letters@observer.co.uk

My computer/laptop sends up a small window for Microsoft Office Outlook which is out of the trial period, any more now needs a purchasing. Don't really use as all my other needs are taken care of eg email etc on Virgin Media. One day I'll get round to it though !

eric_s is quite right to speak plainly. We in the UK are in looking-glass land, re the press and their take on our illness. The reason being that all journalist enquiries for information on scientific and medical matters go to the Science Media Centre - their head Fiona Fox comments in the Observer article - and their spokesman for all things ME is...Simon Wessely.

Same old, same old. Wessely, McClure and Crawley, crying wolf again. Shame on the Observer for this conjecture. No surprise, their mate Fiona Fox weighs in. Comments to the article are not allowed - why not? Because we would be able to refute this piece of rabble rousing.

You'll remember this bit from Spin Friday, and earlier from the Lancet Hawkes piece
"Wessely has installed speed dial phones and panic buttons at the police's request and has his mail X-rayed. He gave up his research on chronic fatigue syndrome several years ago, though he still treats patients. "I have moved my research interests to studies of Gulf war syndrome and other conditions linked to war zones," he said. "That has taken me to Iraq and Afghanistan where quite frankly I feel a lot safer and I don't mean that as a joke."

Unbelievable. And to say he feels safer in Afghanistan, where he is blaming soldiers' PTSD on "family issues", but never mind that, is hyperbole and a half. How many people have been killed by ME/CFS patients? How many UK nationals have been killed in Afghanistan? Exactly.

Regarding the knife - was it a small pen knife, carried for practical purposes such as cutting up an apple or opening a bubble pack such as many carry as a matter of course, or was it a fixed blade over 3" long, therefore an offensive weapon. A pound gets you ten that it was the former.

We need serious, professional PR - not this website, Public Relations. Our PR is rubbish. Any ideas?

Dolphin posted the response I got from the Observer for my letter, which is similar to the response I have made earlier in this post.

My computer/laptop sends up a small window for Microsoft Office Outlook which is out of the trial period, any more now needs a purchasing. Don't really use as all my other needs are taken care of eg email etc on Virgin Media. One day I'll get round to it though !

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But all one needs is E-mail: letters@observer.co.uk - most letters these days in newspapers (given the dates the articles were published) have been E-mailed in. Newspapers most likely prefer that to snail mail where they would have to scan in a letter.

As I've said before, the parallels with the Weasels' current propganda, and that of the Third Reich, Stalin and the Witch Finders of 16th to 17th century, is very very similar, and just as evil.

Psychologists and psychiatrists learn how to "push peoples' buttons", Good ones of course merely use that to help patients, Bad ones have been using it to run Public Relations and other services and goals
I'll give you an example of the manipulation everyone faces day to day:
You know why they put "staples" like bread and milk at the back or far end of a supermarket? so you have to pass by all the non-essential luxuries, first...ie, it encourages you to spend more on things you don't need.

Alas, Human pond scum can read historical accounts and autobiogrpahies, and learn methods to manipulate, abuse and worse, from "The Prince" by Mahciavelli to "The Stanford Prison Experiment". It's one of the problematical things with the printing press and free speech: it also helps ratbags, lol

Wessely and others, a whole bunch of folk who'll fall with him when he goes, are desperate to shore up their "defences", as there's huge amount of reputations, money and egos riding on this.
But this shows their contempt and secret hatred of their victims. They blame us for daring to speak out of turn, we are the ignorant plebs, the weaklings who should beg and scrape and tug the forelock to our Lords & Masters who do so very much to help us sick, ungrateful bastards!
Well they can go F**K THEMSELVES, CROSSWAYS!
They are the actual criminals of this story, abusers, deviants, pyschopths, torturers, hypocrits, fraudsters, LIARS.

"FREEDOM!"

In the end, they will get what's coming to them. Not a "death threat", just I long to see Wessely etc, broken, reputations destoryed, vilified in the media as modern day monsters akin to the Nazis, and on their way to a 30 year stretch in general population of worst jail in UK
That's the thing about monsters, they always see themselves as in the right, and doing things for the "greater good"...and wonder why they are being lead away in handcuffs...

As I've said before, the parallels with the Weasels' current propganda, and that of the Third Reich, Stalin and the Witch Finders of 16th to 17th century, is very very similar, and just as evil.

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Come on - I think that Wessely is a vile quack who has done a lot to harm many CFS patients. That's not nearly as evil as the Third Reich or Stalin! Imagine that quote being used in an article - it would just be taken to show how unreasonable critics of Wessely are. There are lots of legitimate ways of attacking his work and what he has done, but we need to avoid getting caught up in our own anger, and allowing that to be used to discredit all criticism of Wessely (which is how some seem to be trying to use it).

Despite this last effort to discredit the ME community as a whole with sensationalism (which will attract reasoned responses) I think events (research etc) has almost caught up with him and his "theories" about ME. Something of a try on again in this distorted picture of ME sufferers.

Actually I meant to say research has caught up and shown the psychos fundamentally wrong and from the very beginning.

Esther
do you think the folk we now see as villains, of those prior times, thought of themselves as "monsters"?
No, most of them genuinely believed they were doing "good work".
It's a continuation of evils that plagued us for millenia.
To what extent what has been done ot the M.E. patients worldwide is down to:
blind absolute belief in the "rigthness" of an outlook; finanical gain; hunger for professional kudos; callous inhumanity; bigotry; desite to silence a major embarassment for government and industry, or who knows what.
We may never know.

Very seriously though, go read up on the "Witch Finders", examine their mentality and methods.
These kind of people always blame their victims: if the victim is at fault, is "other", then the wicked things done to them are justifiable.
It's ALWAYS the damn same. The genocidal tyrants of the last century used that to brilliant effect: many people supported or overlooked their horrors.
Odd example today:
look at recent riots in London, blaming poor unemployed "Chavs" as the sole cause and demonizing the "lower orders"...rubbish, many of those caught looting were employed, even professional classes!
Not saying their isn't problems in parts of society or that they had a large hand in the criminality, but it's easy to blame a weak, marginalized or misunderstood group and prevent understanding of some issue. Classic diversionary tactics.

If you deny treatment, and encourage the abuse and denial of rights and medical aid to millions...what is that? A "Misdemeanour"? No, it's a serious damn crime on an enormous scale.
if this was done to HIV/AIDS patients because they are gay or black or whatever, what would you call that? Most folk would call it a Crime Against Humanity and probably Genocide, demanding those invovled be tried in The Hague.
But that ACTUALLY happened, work on HIV was denied in the early days, because they were "homosexual/non-white/drug users so they didn't count or deserved to suffer because they were unGodly!!" Jeesh
Go read up or remember the crap that happened back then, it's an appalling disgrace on the USA and lesser extent UK and other nations how such was regarded and research/treatment denied becauseof a bunch of bigots and religious extremists
Oh and yes, some psychiatrists claimed AIDS was all in their heads...so, the stress of being gay somehow caused two rare lethal diseases to kill them, um, WTH?! Took about 100 deaths before they clammed up on that idiocy, and that little factoid has slipped under the radar of history.

Kill one man, and you are a murderer.
Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror.
Kill them all, and you are a god

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People cannot understand the "huge" crimes (sometimes not even the ones doing them), it's simply impossible to grasp the consequences of the wrongdoer's actions, so, prosecutors hinge their cases on a few horrific acts.

We are NOT going to win this "arguement", no amount of pretending to be "Nicey nice" to those we know are responsible, will overturn this load of crap we're stiffled under.
We do not count for jack SQUAT, that's the truth of it. We are just "inconsequential, powerless bugs" to those involved with this.
We're not rich, we cannot demonstrate en masse', we have no obvious disbaility...thus it's perfect for hiding the facts, pinning the blame on the victim, and making the public "ignore the little man behind the curtain, as we deal with these silly lunatics!" :/

Not until something external, some horrendous outbreak, whistleblower, or slow eventual acceptance of physical basis of M.E. over decades, will things change, same as for other abused folk in similar fashion.
Look at what happened ot folk with multiple sclerosis, groups society despised like homosexuals, those with actual mental illnesses, and those who society claimed had mental illnesses to lock them up and hide the truth, etc etc

It's bloody awesomely brilliant bit of tactics: if you claim somone is mentally unbalanced, no matter what they say, no matter the facts, they will not be believed!
Hence why the Soviets had dissidents locked up in insane asylums, where as if they had jailed them, their voices could still be heard and folk would believe and support them, seeing they were unjustly imprisoned. But claim they are "mad"...oh, now folk will doubt them, won't support them.
So, no matter what we say, the psychs brilliantly planted the seed that "since they are mad, you cannot believe anything they say!"
therefor we cannot win by playing their game!

For millenia, rulers claimed their authority came from the gods, and thus, no one dared question their legitimacy
But when they did start to question...oh, that changed things, big time
"Rulers" of any stripe fear, above all things, losing their authority, they fear and hate "change".
"If you want to make enemies, try to change something!"
It doens't matter if the change is essential, it still alters their cosy, lazy equilibrium.
So, our modern rulers have to come up with more complex and subtle means of ensuring the legitimacy of their rule, and subvert change which could undermine them.
I'll avoid getting into politics, but this should be apparent in how our systems have degenerated and stagnated.

The UK has problems, since we have "democracy by consent", not true Rule of Law (bit complex), we've got a bazillion interwoven groups and meetings in the proverbial backrooms, designed to run the country. Which is where things like the Science Media Centre, and Wessely, come in.
There's no damn hard, properly overseen accountability and common sense in this country. It's all "nods as good as wink" and "do you have the right tie?"

As I've said before, the UK's authorities had kids shipped off, some stolen as they told their mothers they had died at birth, to "re-stock" the Colonies with "whites"
that is a fact, it proves how despicable and evil our government can be. They KNEW those kids were stolen, they KNEW they were being sexual abused etc. They didn't care, because...they didn't want ot know to avoid responsibility, and "The Ends Justify The Means"
Bloody typical behaviour, and yet, in a modern Democracy.
What we have suffered, is merely part and parcel of how "things are done behind the curtain". Go see how the nuclear test veterans, asbestos victims etc have been treated.
it is a horrendous and STUPID criminal act on an enormous scale...but, par for the course :/

If M.E. turns out to be caused by an infectious agent, these scumbags could eventually cause the suffering and death of BILLIONS, because this will continue far into the future, causing vast amounts of unecessary suffering and death, putting the death tolls of the tyrants of the 20th Century into paltry insignificance.
But people cannot comprehend the timescales and the death tolls of such, so, I'll posit you this question:

Say, a new subtler, untreatable form of smallpox breaks out, and a bunch of doctors and others, cover it up, because it would cause embarassment and financial loss (the "Jaws Syndrome"), and they declare anyone who says such things is "mentally unbalanced". The disease spreads, mutates, becomes airborne and evenutally kills 50% of the Human Race. Three billion people die in a decade.
What crime have those doctors etc committed? Are they not at least on par with the evils of Hitler, Stalin etc?

And the thing is, this has ALREADY happened, though fortunately not with that pandemic hecatomb result: SARS.
it could have been a catastrophy though, SARS has 10% mortality rate and is an airborne virus....that's bad, very bad.
If it turns out M.E. is a retorvirus...and the Weasels have prevented it's identification and treatment for 30 years...?

OK, Silverblade is passionate and outspoken in his/her statements..... but the drip drip drip over 15 years of media disablist hate speech and denial of basic rights and denigration of sick and disabled citizens in Britain by Ministers and Media has its historical precedent...

No one I know who is sick and disabled expects to be actually blatantly genocided (T4-ed) any time soon....

BUT the rates of bullying, harassment intimidation and hate crimes against sick and disabled Britons is out of control and the shame of any so-called civilised society (it was out f control before but has escalated since the media disability benefits hate speech onslaught) and we do not get the protection of the Law.

AND.... the blatant Government/Media Witchunting and Scapegoating of sick and Disabled citizens is blatant and undeniable. We try to remain dignified and respond in reasonable and rational ways... but we have no public voice.

Our fellow citizens in Britain really do now believe that sick and disabled citizens are benefit scrounging scum who could work really.

I posted this Comment in the Guardian last summer. I am sorry that no journalist listened until it was too late.

'Years of paying tax and national insurance means nothing if you become disabled or severely and chronically ill in the UK in the 21st century.

Beware committing the crime of becoming severely sick with any incurable disabling disease that does not kill you quickly enough for our governments satisfaction.

Citizens who suffer from diseases that can be cured are classed as virtuous and deserving NHS users. But if your disease cannot be cured and so is long term and disabling you are reclassified from innocent citizen to scrounging deviant who could work really.

The sickness benefits system was inhumane before. Labour made it worse. Now disability and disabling chronic illness and disability is being politically Disappeared.

We are too sick and/or disabled to work. Not unemployed. Simply too sick and disabled to work to support ourselves as we would do if our lives had not been devastated by serious disabling diseases.

How wonderful to have a vision that the financial mess that the people did not create can be sorted out and solved by scapegoating some of the most vulnerable in society. In the last 10 years government advisors have intoned the Litany of Work makes you Happy and Work makes you Healthy.

Now its Work Makes You Free.

Expect a sharp rise in the suicide rate of chronically sick and disabled citizens. Too many have been inhumanely hounded for many years already by the irrational punitive sickness benefits system and are at the end of what can be endured and are very frightened and traumatized by it.

To process and hound sick people into jobs they are too ill to do (into jobs that dont exist) will be T4 By The Back Door for some chronically sick and disabled citizens who can take no more at this stage, as so many who are too sick and/or disabled to work have already been hounded by the sickness benefits agencies for years and years.

As one severely sick person put it: I am not an animal. I am not a criminal.
I am not a subhuman. And I am not guilty!

Please wake up to the fact that the political disappearing of sickness benefits means that YOU will all have to pay into and rely on private health insurance companies.

In fact Executives of the big health insurer UNUM, based at the UNUM Centre at Cardiff University are amongst the very people who advised our last government on its punitive sickness benefit reforms. UNUM is also amongst the companies that will profit the most from the sickness benefits reforms.

In the meantime the Health Insurer UNUM have been busy redefining the words sickness and incapacity in such terms that the Health Insurance companies don't have to pay the full whack or pay out At All.

UNUM has the worst possible record in dirty tricks and sharp practices. The evidence is incontrovertible. In the US UNUM has been up before the Senate a number of times and has been ordered to reopen and reassess an outrageous number of claims. A high level Inquiry in California into UNUM sharp practices concluded that Unum is an Outlaw Company that operates beyond the law. But UK governments have unwisely welcomed Unum into Britain and made the greedy ruthless health insurance industry an actual partner in policy making.

Mainly because of relentless biased reporting on Disability benefits in terms of fraud only by conflating fraud figures (which are tiny) with official Error figures and touting it as one figure - but also partly because its hard for anyone to envisage losing their health life and independence to disability and severe sickness the British public remain in the dark about the vested interests behind sickness and disability benefit reforms and about the outrageous profits now being made by health insurers and unemployment training companies which are profitable new industry.

By the time the British public has woken up to the Facts it will be too late to stop the Health Insurance industry, Atos, A4E and the Back to Work training companies cruel, inhumane but profitable juggernaught.

*Action T4 was the Nazi euthanasia program that euthanised (killed) citizens with incurable diseases (both acute and chronic illness) and disabilities.'